COMETS FOR THE VISUAL OBSERVER IN 2006

摘要

Somewhat in contrast to the past few years, at this writing (late Sept. 2005) there are no known inbound long-period comets that are expected to reach naked-eye brightness during 2006, although some fainter objects should be detectable with moderate-size visual telescopes. Meanwhile, one short-period comet may reach naked-eye visibility during mid-2006, and several other short-period objects should also become visually accessible during the course of the year. Perihelion information (utilizing the most recently computed orbits at the time of this writing) for the comets discussed below is given in Table 1, in chronological order of perihelion passage. Ephemerides are available in the 2006 Comet Handbook published by the ICQ.